Rain
by StarlingJedi
Summary: Luke experiences rain for the first time. Set just after the events of Episode IV: A New Hope.


**A/N:** Inspired by a one-shot in Fettkat's "Ripples In Still Water" collection. I've been sitting on this one for about a year, and am just now getting around to actually posting this somewhere. I am my only beta; I've read and re-read this a hundred times, so any remaining mistakes are totally my own.

Takes place just after the events of _A New Hope_.

* * *

"That should take care of it."

Han Solo dropped the access panel back into its proper slot, which latched down with a loud _clang_. Brushing the dust and grease from his hands, he raised his voice to be heard underneath the ship. "You 'bout finished down there, Chewie?"

From somewhere below the _Millennium Falcon_, Chewbacca roared an affirmative.

"Great. Hurry up and get those last few cables reconnected so we can blast out of here." From his vantage point on the top of his ship, Han looked around the hanger and idly wondered how long it had taken the Rebels to build it into the huge ziggurat they were using as their Yavin 4 base. Somebody had mentioned that the ancient stone structure had originally been a temple for a long-extinct people called the Massassi; surely a starship hanger hadn't been in the Massassi's original plans.

Another _clang_, and Chewbacca gave a single, triumphant bark.

"Done already? That was quick." Han quickly crossed the ship to the access ladder and scrambled down to the floor. "So are we ready to go yet or not?"

Chewbacca, well over two meters of Wookiee, emerged from under the ship, shaking his furry head in disagreement.

"What now?"

The Wookiee pointed a lanky arm toward the mouth of the hanger and woofed a brief reply.

"What do you mean, 'it's raining'? Since when are we afraid of a little rain?" Han turned to look outside, eyes widening as he saw the sheets of water pouring from the sky. As if the heavy downfall wasn't bad enough, fog had rolled in, making visibility without sensors practically nonexistent. "Oh. That's definitely not a 'little' rain. Where did all _that_ come from?"

Chewbacca gave a lengthy reply.

"I _know_ it's a rain forest, Chewie. I meant, when did it start raining? I never even noticed it start."

Chewbacca growled inquiringly.

"Fly? In _that_?!" Han shook his head in disbelief. "Have you lost your karking _mind_, Chewie? I ain't _that_ crazy!"

* * *

At first, Luke Skywalker thought they were under attack.

He wasn't sure _what_ kind of attack it was. He'd never heard anything strike a roof with such a rapid-fire _patter-patter-patter_ that sounded almost like a roar - but, then again, everything else he'd experienced so far, ever since old Ben Kenobi booked them passage onboard the _Millennium Falcon_, was so different than anything he'd ever experienced on Tatooine. For example, he never imagined that a TIE fighter would sound like a hundred shrieking demons as it flew through the sky.

Luke jumped up from his bunk, grabbing a blaster with one hand and his lightsaber with the other. No air raid klaxons had sounded yet, but he knew it would only be a matter of time before someone realized the danger and sounded the alarm. Maybe Luke had been the only one to hear it. Perhaps an Imperial fleet had decided to strike their base in retaliation for destroying the Death Star. Or maybe they were under attack by some indigenous tribe of life-forms, like Tatooine's Sand People. Or maybe...

Luke ran down the corridor that led to one of the Massassi ziggurat's balconies, and skidded to a sudden stop, startled by what he saw on the other side of the transparisteel windows.

The jungle's giant Massassi trees - which had fascinated Luke to no end during his first day on Yavin 4 - were all but obscured by a heavy bank of fog. It reminded him a little of a sandstorm back on Tatooine, only whiter. But what captured his attention and held it was the sight of flowing water cascading down the windows and flowing across the weathered stone of the balcony level.

They weren't under attack at all. It was _raining_.

Slowly, as if in a trance, Luke approached the doorway, eyes wide in total fascination as he took in the sight of the falling rain. He knew what rain was, of course, but it was still an incredibly breaktaking sight to see such vast amounts of water falling from the sky. On Tatooine, water had to be wrenched from the dry atmosphere, one precious drop at a time. Here, water was so plentiful that it fell from the sky, and rivers of it flowed through the dense forest.

A cool mist drifted inside from the open doorway. Luke cautiously reached a hand outside, drawing it back quickly as raindrops splattered against his skin. The droplets that had accumulated on the back of his hand didn't evaporate immediately, as water tended to do on Tatooine; instead, they slid down the uneven surface of his skin, collecting to form larger drops, until they rolled down his fingers and dripped onto the floor. They weren't warm, like the water that came out of the vaporators of his uncle's moisture farm, but cool and refreshing. He reached outside again - palm up this time - and let the rain collect in his hand, watching as the drops splashed in the shallow pool of water he held until the water spilled over and ran down the length of his arm.

The sleeve of his flight suit now soaked, Luke decided to step outside entirely. The rain pelted him with a surprising amount of force, and he wondered briefly if this was what it felt like to swim. Moisture was _everywhere_, even in the heavy fog that permeated the air, enhancing the smell of the vegetation from the surrounding forest, and making the air heavier and almost harder to breathe. Rain ran in cool, wet rivulets down his face as he turned his head upward toward the gray sky. Experimentally, he opened his mouth to catch some of the rainwater on his tongue. It had a clean, almost sharp, taste to it, with none of the metallic aftertaste of water extracted from a vaporator.

Luke was thoroughly drenched now, and enjoying every minute of it. The only time in his life that he'd ever considered himself "wet" was when he and Uncle Owen had gotten sprayed with hot, dirty water from a broken vaporator they'd been fixing. It had been a very unhappy experience, requiring a sonic shower to remove the mud and grease from his face and hair, and Uncle Owen had complained for a good two hours about the waste of precious water that the vaporator had caused. But _this_... this was something else, something different. It was cool and wet and clean, mysterious and beautiful, new and yet somehow familiar. And it was absolutely _wonderful_!

* * *

"I thought you were leaving."

Han and Chewbacca had run into Princess Leia on their way down the corridors of the Yavin base. Han flashed her his famous lop-sided grin at her words. "Hey, and miss out on your lovely hospitality?" he said.

Beside him, Chewbacca gave a derisive snort that needed no translation.

"All right, all right, so maybe I decided to stick around and wait out the rain," Han said, shooting Chewbacca a wounded look. "You got a problem with that, Your Royal Worshipfulness?"

Leia glared at him. "Not at all," she replied, a hint of icy scorn in her voice.

Abruptly, Chewbacca came to a stop at the intersection of two perpendicular corridors, and let out a very Human-sounding _hunh?_

"What is it, Chewie?" Han asked. He and Leia came to a stop and backtracked to see what had caught the Wookiee's attention. Chewbacca pointed down the corridor they'd just passed; as one, they turned and looked out the window to see...

... Luke Skywalker, decorated hero of the Rebellion - destroyer of the Death Star - dancing and splashing in the rain like a two-year-old.

Han stood, mouth agape, as Chewbacca started woofing in amusement. Beside him, Leia let out a very un-ladylike snort of laughter. "And you all thought _I_ was the crazy one," Han remarked.

"That's not crazy," Leia replied. "It's _sweet_."

"Sweet? What's so sweet about a grown man acting like a child?" He started down the corridor toward Luke. "Hey, kid! Come back inside before you catch a cold out there!"

"Oh, leave him be," Leia scolded, catching up to him and stopping him with a touch of her hand on his arm.

"Why?"

Chewbacca roared a lengthy reply, reminding Han that Luke grew up on Tatooine, a dry desert planet where no rain ever fell, and - since he'd never been off planet before - this was the first time he'd seen rain and he should be allowed to enjoy it as he wished.

"Yeah, I guess you're probably right." Han shook his head. "Still looks crazy, though."

"Only because we're used to seeing water fall from the sky," Leia remarked softly. "It's enough to make you see the beauty in the mundane, isn't it?"

"Huh." For just a moment, Han could see the downfall through Luke's eyes. Stunning and fascinating - more than an annoying hinderance. "You're right."

Together, they watched in pensive silence while Luke, oblivious to his audience, laughed and played in the rain.

* * *

**A/N 2:** Please R&amp;R! Reviews make me happy! :)


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